SPEAKER_02: Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.
SPEAKER_02: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: And worthily magnify your holy name through Christ our Lord.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_02: O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of the bread.
SPEAKER_02: Open the eyes of our faith that we may behold him in all his redeeming work, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Please be seated for the lessons.
SPEAKER_02: I meant the children should come up for a sermon.
SPEAKER_02: I love you guys.
SPEAKER_02: Because I certainly have one prepared.
SPEAKER_01: That I spent a really long time on.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Hi, y'all.
SPEAKER_01: Ooh, I get to sit with you this time.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not that big.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, good.
SPEAKER_02: You're coming up, thank you.
SPEAKER_02: So have any of you ever been in an argument with your parents?
SPEAKER_02: Have any of you ever felt like your parents are upset with you?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, me too.
SPEAKER_02: Is that a fun feeling?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: I don't like it either.
SPEAKER_02: But you know, interestingly, in our story today, in the Jesus story that we're going to listen to, Jesus says some really interesting things that I think are hard to hear.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus says that conflict is actually sometimes really good for our relationships.
SPEAKER_02: He says sometimes we think that the goal is to never have any conflict and that everything should be super easy.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, some of us believe that what Easter means and what it means to be Christians is that things should be simple and easy and joyful all the time.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus says, no, that's not actually the case.
SPEAKER_02: That sometimes we get in conflict with the people that we love.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they're disappointed in us.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we're disappointed in them.
SPEAKER_02: And guess what?
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's your parents that are wrong.
SPEAKER_02: Do they like to hear that when they've made a mistake?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: I sure don't like it.
SPEAKER_02: But part of what it means to be Christians is that we don't fear that.
SPEAKER_02: We say that in relationships of love and with our family, we stay in relationship, we don't give up, we be honest, and that conflict isn't always a bad thing.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, sometimes conflict is the holiest thing that can happen in a relationship.
SPEAKER_02: And so I want to tell you that it's okay sometimes to have that in your life.
SPEAKER_02: And if if you're feeling frustrated or angry, or you're feeling like you're disappointed in your parents or they're disappointed in you, that that's okay.
SPEAKER_02: That we can work through that.
SPEAKER_02: And that eventually that conflict goes away if you stick to it.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: Good.
SPEAKER_02: You're left.
SPEAKER_01: How'd I do it?
SPEAKER_02: Hey, all right.
SPEAKER_01: I worked on that all week.
SPEAKER_01: That was really good.
SPEAKER_01: Don't tell Mike.
SPEAKER_03: Now Judah fell on her face and put ashes on her head, and stripped off the sackcloth she was wearing it.
SPEAKER_03: And just as it was being offered in the house of God in Jerusalem in the evening incense, Judah cried out to the Most High with a loud voice and said, Holy God of my ancestors, Sam to whom you gave in hand a sword for revenge on those foreigners and forced upon open a virgin's own for define a scripture.
SPEAKER_03: And desecrated her land into a disgrace.
SPEAKER_03: For you said it shall not be done, and yet they did it.
SPEAKER_03: In return, you gave up their labours for slaughter, and their bed, which was a shame of their deceitfulness with itself deceived, for blood, and struck down slaves with sovereigns and sovereignts on their sins, and who gave up their wives for women, and their daughters to captivity, and all their money to be divided among your beloved sons, who were zealous with the zeal for you, and found detestable the pollution of their blood, and called on you, the one who helps, O God my God, bear me also a widow.
SPEAKER_03: You and me have done the four things for those to come.
SPEAKER_03: Those in our hand have those yet to come conceived.
SPEAKER_03: And the things you divide have presented themselves and said, Look, here we are, for all your ways stand ready with your judgment, and your judgment is done through foreknowledge.
SPEAKER_03: Look, for the Assyrians greatly multiplied in power, exalted themselves through horse and rider, boasting in the might of their foot soldiers, and trusting in shoes and spear, and above the plane, and do not know you are the holy one of the crushed horse.
SPEAKER_03: Holy is your name, smite their strength with your power, and shatter their might in your wrath.
SPEAKER_03: For they intend to desecrate your sanctuary, and to pollute the tabernacle, the resting place of your glorious name, and to strike off with iron the horns of your altar.
SPEAKER_03: Look at their insolence and send your wrath upon their heads, and give my widow's hand strength for what I have conceived.
SPEAKER_03: Strike down the slave and the deceit of my lips, and even the ruler, the ruler with his attendant, crush their uprising with a feminine hand.
SPEAKER_03: For your might is not a number, nor your sovereignty of the strong, but you are the God of those that have held of no account, helper of the lonely, protector of the vulnerable, defender of those who have despaired, savior of those without hope.
SPEAKER_03: Yea, yea, the God of my ancestors, God of the heritage of Israel, sovereign of the heavens and earth, creator of the waters, majesty of all your creation, hearken to my prayer.
SPEAKER_03: Grant that my word and deceitfulness may yield trauma loans and put the stripes on those who against your covenant and against your sacred house and against Mount Zion and against the house that your children possess have devised cruelty.
SPEAKER_03: And as for the whole of your nation and every tribe, grant them the knowledge to know that you are God, the God of all power and might, and that there is no one who protects the people of Israel other than you, the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: Why God do you reject all time?
SPEAKER_03: Remember your congregation you acquired before time that you redeem to be the tribe of your heritage.
SPEAKER_03: Lift up your steps to the perpetual ruins.
SPEAKER_03: Your foes have roared within your meeting place.
SPEAKER_03: It was perceived like when they go up.
SPEAKER_03: And then it's carved work all together.
SPEAKER_03: They set your sanctuary on fire.
SPEAKER_03: They said within their hearts, We will crush them.
SPEAKER_03: How how long, God, is the adversary to taunt?
SPEAKER_03: Why do you hold back your hand?
SPEAKER_03: Yet, God, my sovereign, is from before time.
SPEAKER_02: I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and would that it were already blazing.
SPEAKER_02: Now I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and how much pressure is closing in until it is completed.
SPEAKER_02: Do you all think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?
SPEAKER_02: No, I tell you, it is the contrary.
SPEAKER_02: Division.
SPEAKER_02: From now on, five in one home will be divided, three against two, and two against three.
SPEAKER_02: They will be divided, father against son.
SPEAKER_02: Son against father, mother against daughter, and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.
SPEAKER_01: This is the gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our Redeemer, in the name of the Father and Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Please be seated, friends.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna get some water.
SPEAKER_02: While I'm doing that, I just want to do a quick poll.
SPEAKER_02: How many of you, after I read that, were like, Amen?
SPEAKER_02: No, hallelujah.
SPEAKER_02: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_02: What all of my friends get to read The Road to Emmaus today.
SPEAKER_02: Like, that's what they get to read.
SPEAKER_02: That's the classic reading.
SPEAKER_02: Not here at St.
SPEAKER_02: Thomas.
SPEAKER_02: Nope.
SPEAKER_02: Get Luke 12.
SPEAKER_02: I get we're gonna pit mothers against daughters and fathers against sons and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.
SPEAKER_02: We get that one.
SPEAKER_02: You know, I was thinking writing a sermon that when we were in Costa Rica, uh we were learning Spanish, and they were uh trying to teach me that uh Abuela was trying to teach me how to remember certain words in Spanish.
SPEAKER_02: And the word for daughter-in-law, she said was nueva.
SPEAKER_02: Nueva.
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, how am I gonna remember this?
SPEAKER_02: And she said, well, for us, we say no era mi hija.
SPEAKER_02: Now, if you speak Spanish, it's a pun.
SPEAKER_02: No era mi hija is she's not my daughter.
SPEAKER_02: That's really funny.
SPEAKER_02: So listen, this is a tough one.
SPEAKER_02: This is a hard one.
SPEAKER_02: And you know, last week I said that as Easter people, we want to talk about what does it mean to be people of resurrection?
SPEAKER_02: Like, the resurrection is not a singular event.
SPEAKER_02: It did happen.
SPEAKER_02: We believe that.
SPEAKER_02: And the implication is that we are resurrection people.
SPEAKER_02: We are living it as we learned in our education class.
SPEAKER_02: And I said that part of that is renewal.
SPEAKER_02: It means that we look at parts of our life and we think about what it means to renew.
SPEAKER_02: And last week I talked about desire.
SPEAKER_02: And this week, what came apparent to me is relationships.
SPEAKER_02: That part of what it means to be living the resurrection is how are we in relationships of renewal?
SPEAKER_02: Looking at our close, in particular, relationships, like in particularly the close ones around us.
SPEAKER_02: And I will tell you, what I'm gonna say today might be the hardest sermon than I preached since I've been here.
SPEAKER_02: For you.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, for me, I mean it's super, super hard for me to go to this place as well.
SPEAKER_02: But but what I mean is to hear what I what I'm having to say is not a small or easy thing.
SPEAKER_02: So I'm just warning you.
SPEAKER_02: And to start, I I wanted to I wanted to start at the beginning.
SPEAKER_02: I so there's this fancy term called theological uh anthropology.
SPEAKER_02: So we have what's called as Christians a theological anthropology.
SPEAKER_02: So anthropology, anthropost, logos talk about what it means to be a human.
SPEAKER_02: That's what anthropologists do.
SPEAKER_02: They study the reality of what it means to be a human and cultures and such.
SPEAKER_02: As Christians, we take certain assumptions for granted about anthropology.
SPEAKER_02: We have a theological one.
SPEAKER_02: These are what philosophers were called a priori statements, things that are always and everywhere true for everybody.
SPEAKER_02: There are no exceptions.
SPEAKER_02: The first that we say is that we are all made in the image and likeness of God.
SPEAKER_02: That part of the Judeo Christian tradition, or the Christian tradition in particular, I can speak for that one, is that we believe every single person is made.
SPEAKER_02: In the image of likeness of God.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't like that, but it's true.
SPEAKER_02: I would like to think that people who disagree with me, particularly on really important issues, or people who behave in a certain way, that they're not made in the image of God, so I'm allowed to treat them as if they weren't.
SPEAKER_02: And we all do that, right?
SPEAKER_02: This is really hard to believe that every single person, I would argue every part of creation, but every single person.
SPEAKER_02: But the good news is so am I.
SPEAKER_02: So I get to treat myself as if I was made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_02: That we take this as a base statement and belief about every human being.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Another anthropology that we have based on being made in the image of God is that we were made for relationships.
SPEAKER_02: So if we believe that the God underneath all things is inherently relationship, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: It's part and parcel of who God is, then that means it's part and parcel of who we are.
SPEAKER_02: So we were made for relationships.
SPEAKER_02: And not any kind of relationship, a relationship of giving and receiving.
SPEAKER_02: We say perfect giving and receiving of love, a dynamic relationship.
SPEAKER_02: And we know this.
SPEAKER_02: We know that if you leave little babies unattended, where they have no love and affection, they have no relationship, they die.
SPEAKER_02: Like we know that all of us need to be in relationship for our own existence.
SPEAKER_02: We have been formed by the relationships of our life.
SPEAKER_02: I do not exist apart from all of the relationships that I've had in my life.
SPEAKER_02: It's part of who I am.
SPEAKER_02: So we're made in the image of God and we're made in relationship.
SPEAKER_02: And then we have this doctrine.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to go into it too much, but we say that sin has entered the world.
SPEAKER_02: Sin is not a behavior.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there are behaviors as a result of it, but it's not at its core a behavior.
SPEAKER_02: It's a condition.
SPEAKER_02: Which means that it's not working the way it was designed.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not working the way I was designed as made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_02: My relationships aren't functioning the way that they were designed in the image and likeness of God, giving and receiving of love.
SPEAKER_02: So this is the story that we tell.
SPEAKER_02: So it would make sense that if we are resurrection people, if we are trying to live into the resurrection and renew, then perhaps we take a look at our relationships because they might need renewing.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: So to do that, looking at the story, I thought, well, first we gotta get this fire bit out of the way.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: We've got to address this beginning where Jesus said, I am gonna cast fire down upon the earth.
SPEAKER_02: Now, if you're like me, the first thing you think of when you think of the fire is punishment.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Dante.
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you and your inferno.
SPEAKER_02: Since Dante, and probably before that, but especially since Dante, we have this image of fire as being punitive.
SPEAKER_02: The land of the devil, the place with the pitchforks and the horns where you go for endless torment.
SPEAKER_02: The fires of hell.
SPEAKER_02: Save me from the fire of hell.
SPEAKER_02: But fire has been sort of a punitive, violent, I'm gonna get you metaphor, but that's not what I think is the most accurate or original understanding in the Jewish and Judeo-Christian tradition.
SPEAKER_02: The fire has been a representation of the purifying presence of God.
SPEAKER_02: Remember, God showed up as a pillar of fire.
SPEAKER_02: So fire is about purifying, it's about letting the dross fall away so that the realness can come out.
SPEAKER_02: And yes, I will tell you that when I have encountered the difficult truths of my life, it has kind of felt a little bit like burning.
SPEAKER_02: It was not easy, it was not super pleasant.
SPEAKER_02: Am I the only one who like chokes up apologies?
SPEAKER_02: Who has to come to grips with my imperfections?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when I have to come face to face with that, it does feel like something is being burned away.
SPEAKER_02: It's not always pleasant.
SPEAKER_02: So fire can show up as the unpleasant reality of confronting God.
SPEAKER_02: And in fact, I think there's scriptural evidence.
SPEAKER_02: So there's some good scholarship around Jesus' Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 5, where when Jesus says, You are the salt of the earth, you know, we're all famous with that one, you are the salt of the earth, the light of the world.
SPEAKER_02: You see, even now, but for much of first century Near East Palestine in that culture, they they had these ovens.
SPEAKER_02: They had different kinds of ovens.
SPEAKER_02: And one of the ovens was like an earthen oven that they built out of the ground.
SPEAKER_02: It was literally affixed to the ground.
SPEAKER_02: It was about three feet high, kind of like a little tiny pizza oven in some ways.
SPEAKER_02: And then they would, you know, bread would be made here, different things would be cooked.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, different things would be fired.
SPEAKER_02: And the fuel that they used was not wood.
SPEAKER_02: Because wood was expensive.
SPEAKER_02: Like, why would you use wood when you can have, you know, the young ladies go and collect camel dung and put salt in it and make patties and hang them out to dry, and then you take a big block of salt as a catalyst, my chemists know this, and you put it in the bottom of the oven, and then you throw the dung, the salt dung dried out, and you light it, and that's the fire.
SPEAKER_02: That's the fuel source.
SPEAKER_02: So when Jesus says you are the salt of that earth, that earth and Vensa, they would they some people say you they would refer to that as the earth, that type of oven.
SPEAKER_02: What they're saying is like you, me, us, we're the catalyst that allows the fire to continue to burn in the world.
SPEAKER_02: And what good is salt if it can't be a catalyst?
SPEAKER_02: You just throw it out and trample it under feet because at some point you needed to redo the salt because it stopped being effective.
SPEAKER_02: So in one place, Jesus says, You are the salt of the earth.
SPEAKER_02: I am the salt of the earth.
SPEAKER_02: So when I hear, I will cast fire down upon the earth, sounds to me a lot like Pentecost.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna send my Holy Spirit, oh by the way, represented in fire.
SPEAKER_02: And we are gonna be the catalyst that allows the Holy Spirit to continue to move and burn and be present in the world, helping melt away the dross, right?
SPEAKER_02: So right there, Jesus is not saying, oh man, I can't wait to punish everybody.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying the movement is happening, and I can't wait for the Spirit to be sent down, but I have a baptism, I have my work to do, but then we as the salt, the fire is gonna come down and we are gonna continue the work.
SPEAKER_02: That's what it means to be resurrection people.
SPEAKER_02: Ones out in the world continuing the work of all things being made new, living that.
SPEAKER_02: Now, unfortunately, now unfortunately, as great as that is, and as wonderful as that is, am I the only one who, when I started realizing I was made in the image of God and I wanted to become somebody different?
SPEAKER_02: Like I got this beautiful image of who I could become as a father and as a son and as a parent and as a friend.
SPEAKER_02: And I started moving towards that.
SPEAKER_02: I started allowing that beautiful purifying fire to come away.
SPEAKER_02: Am I the only one whose close relationships didn't really like it?
SPEAKER_02: I know I'm not.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Jim, for laughing because he's like, oh, I've ministry for a long time.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, because this is the story, people.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, there is an entire pedagogy of counseling theory on this.
SPEAKER_02: It's called Bowen Family Systems Theory.
SPEAKER_02: Anybody familiar with Bowen family systems theory?
SPEAKER_02: I highly recommend it.
SPEAKER_02: What it basically says is that we are people of story, just like Christians.
SPEAKER_02: This isn't a Christian theory, this is just a psychological theory.
SPEAKER_02: We are people of story formed by our relationships, and that our close relationships of family and friends, especially your ones from your childhood but current ones, right, are one big emotional unit.
SPEAKER_02: It's one big emotional thing.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: And that we like our dysfunction.
SPEAKER_02: I tell people our family puts the fun in dysfunction, baby.
SPEAKER_02: Boy.
SPEAKER_02: Boy, you know, growing up, you wanted to come to my house.
SPEAKER_02: Hi, mom, love you.
SPEAKER_02: She's watching.
SPEAKER_02: But it's true.
SPEAKER_02: We put the fun in dysfunction.
SPEAKER_02: But the truth is, when somebody decides to want to get healthy, right, the system doesn't always like it.
SPEAKER_02: The system likes to pull you back in.
SPEAKER_02: So if you say, you know, I am not gonna operate in the way that I have been, I'm not gonna take that phone call, I'm not gonna laugh at that joke, I'm not gonna have one more drink, right?
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna show up to this, I'm not gonna participate in that conversation.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I'm actually gonna tell folks that I disagree with their geopolitical politics or whatever it is, or I don't like their opinion on things, or the way that we've always done it is no longer how I want to do it.
SPEAKER_02: Because it's not where I feel God is calling me to be.
SPEAKER_02: Murray Butwyn would say that the system doesn't go, oh, awesome.
SPEAKER_02: Awesome! Let's support you in doing that.
SPEAKER_02: The system says no, and it tries to pull you back into your dis-ease and your dysfunction.
SPEAKER_02: Because systems don't like change.
SPEAKER_02: I know I'm not the only one who knows what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_02: And so what Murray would say is that the only thing we can do is stay differentiated.
SPEAKER_02: It's not fix everybody else, which is why I like this as an Easter message.
SPEAKER_02: Easter isn't about saying, man, and well, early on, this was how I operated, so it's kind of a joke to me.
SPEAKER_02: But Easter is not about saying, I have seen the light, the resurrection, and I can't wait to change all of you.
SPEAKER_02: My sister once said, Sean, you're the same jerk you were, it's just now you stand behind Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: I don't get it.
SPEAKER_02: She did.
SPEAKER_02: You did, she's a therapist.
SPEAKER_02: You're the same jerk.
SPEAKER_02: You just stand behind Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: We do, like, there's a way for us to think, I've seen the light.
SPEAKER_02: My job is to fix all of you.
SPEAKER_02: No, what what Murray Bowen says is that I see who I want to be, the values I want to guide in my life, and I start living like that.
SPEAKER_02: And here's the kicker: I have to stay connected.
SPEAKER_02: He says the only way healing happens in transformation in our lives is when we stay connected.
SPEAKER_02: Now that might mean we have to have real clear boundaries.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to answer the phone past 7 o'clock.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to come home for Christmas.
SPEAKER_02: It may be that you know what?
SPEAKER_02: We can't talk right now, and I'll send you a letter or a text once a year.
SPEAKER_02: We said we act in our own integrity.
SPEAKER_02: We live by the values that guide us.
SPEAKER_02: We start running as fast as we can or slow as we can to become the person that we want.
SPEAKER_02: And then when the conflict happens, we stay differentiated.
SPEAKER_02: We don't try to change, and then the system eventually will move and change.
SPEAKER_02: That's what the theory says.
SPEAKER_02: I've experienced it in my own life, right?
SPEAKER_02: So I like it.
SPEAKER_02: Now, you might not, you might find this ridiculous.
SPEAKER_02: But what I know is that Jesus seems to be pretty clear in today's reading that if we're going to be Easter people, we have to attend to the close familial relationships that we have.
SPEAKER_02: And if we think that Easter is all about bunnies and unicorns and candy, and boy, it's all good, and God has blessed me, and this sure is easy and wonderful, then we're missing the extremely hard reality of the fire.
SPEAKER_02: That the Holy Spirit is empowering us towards growth and health and life.
SPEAKER_02: Not numbed friendship.
SPEAKER_02: And so I want to hold so somebody said, Sean, you should do it too long, didn't listen.
SPEAKER_02: A T L D L.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the summary.
SPEAKER_02: My friends, all of us are made beautifully in the image of God for the sake of relationship.
SPEAKER_02: And our relationships are infected with sin, just like me.
SPEAKER_02: They're broken.
SPEAKER_02: They're not operating the way that they should.
SPEAKER_02: That's nobody's fault.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is the sin that has been visited on everybody else, right?
SPEAKER_02: My parents had parents, and their parents had parents, and their parents had parents, and their parents had parents.
SPEAKER_02: And all of us are in complicated relationships.
SPEAKER_02: And part of what it means to be a resurrection person is to take a hard look.
SPEAKER_02: Are they functioning, right?
SPEAKER_02: The way that I think God is asking.
SPEAKER_02: And if they're not, and I suspect they aren't, we differentiate and we say, who do I want to be?
SPEAKER_02: How do I live consistent with my values while staying connected?
SPEAKER_02: Because the Holy Spirit is at work, moving and burning, and the hope.
SPEAKER_02: See, we Jesus quoted Micah 7.
SPEAKER_02: So the father against son, mother against daughter, that's actually a quote.
SPEAKER_02: That's why it's separated and the formatting is different.
SPEAKER_02: He's quoting Micah 7.
SPEAKER_02: And Micah is a prophet who is in exile and he's saying, Oh my gosh, everything is horrible, but it ends with, but you, Lord, I put my trust in to renew all things.
SPEAKER_02: So what Jesus is saying is, is we we enter into the difficult differentiated part, and it's going to cause conflict, and it's going to be difficult, and not everybody is going to be happy and excited that you no longer want to behave in the same way that you used to behave.
SPEAKER_02: But God is at work.
SPEAKER_02: God is renewing all things.
SPEAKER_02: The Holy Spirit is real.
SPEAKER_02: So if we take our place there, then resurrection is coming.
SPEAKER_02: The new thing is coming.
SPEAKER_02: And I know that's hard to believe because, I mean, for some of us, it may not happen until after we die.
SPEAKER_02: There are plenty of stories of relationships, right, that don't ever feel like they've been healed in this life.
SPEAKER_02: That's just true.
SPEAKER_02: I have that, I'm sure you have that.
SPEAKER_02: But we hold out hope together that it's possible.
SPEAKER_02: We draw our boundaries, we keep ourselves safe, we do not enter into unsafe relationships.
SPEAKER_02: Hear me say that very quickly.
SPEAKER_02: And we trust that God is making all things new.
SPEAKER_02: So, my friends, I challenge myself and I challenge all of us to leave here and renew our relationships.
SPEAKER_02: Take a hard look.
SPEAKER_02: Where are they not functioning?
SPEAKER_02: Where am I behaving or in a dynamic that is no longer giving me life and is unhealthy?
SPEAKER_02: How do I need to be different?
SPEAKER_02: And take that place.
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be hard.
SPEAKER_02: But trust that God is at work.
SPEAKER_02: And if you need some help, send me a text.
SPEAKER_02: I'll get you there.